Alarm clock with hour and minute presetting

ABSTRACT

A clock equipped with an electrical or mechanical alarm device has an hour-setting disk and a minute-setting disk which are independently indexable in 24 and 60 different angular positions, respectively, and whose hour and minute markings are visible through a window or windows in the clock housing. Each setting disk is under axial spring pressure and bears a lug which rides on a face of an adjoining follower disk driven by the clockwork at a rate of one or two revolutions per day and one revolution per hour, respectively. Once per revolution, a notch on the face of each follower disk aligns itself with the lug of the associated setting disk to permit axial displacement of the latter; when both setting disks are simultaneously displaced in this manner, the alarm is triggered.

United States Patent Scheer June 12 1973 [54] ALARM CLOCK WITH HOUR AND MINUTE 1,511,893 10/19 24 Luttrell et a1. 58/22 X PRESETTING iunglllans et a1. un anse a. [75] Inventor: Erich Scheer, Peterzell, g Schwarzwald Germany Primary ExaminerRichard B. Wilkinson [73] Assignee: Kundo (Kieninger & Obergfell), St. Assistant ExaminerLawrence R. Franklin Georgen (Schwarzwald), Germany Att0rneyRoss, Karl F.

[22] Filed: Feb. 1, 1971 211 Appl. No.: 111,585 [571 ABSTRACT A clock equipped with an electrical or mechanical 30 F A alarm device has an hour-setting disk and a minute- 1 J 3 53 pp [ca [on Pnomy Data setting disk which are independently indexable in 24 Germany P 20 O4 0771 and 60 different angular positions, respectively, and whose hour and minute markings are visible through a [52] Cl 58/19 i k window or windows in the clock housing. Each setting 1 disk is under axial spring pressure and bears a disk F 'E 41 which rides on a face of an adjoining follower disk I 1 0 can 58 4 27 i driven by the clockwork at a rate of one or two revolutions per day and one revolution per hour, respectively. 56 R f Ct d Once per revolution, a notch on the face of each fol- 1 e erences I e lower disk aligns itself with the lug of the associated set- UNITED STATES PATENTS ting disk to permit axial displacement of the latter; 957,397 5/1910 Wilcox 58/19 B when both setting disks are simultaneously displaced in 2,097,487 11/1937 Kinnear..... 58/19 R this manner, the alarm is triggered. 3,548,587 12/1970 Wood 58/46 460,751 10/1891 Madel 58/22 7 Claims, 4 Drawing Figures Erich SCheer IN VEN TOR.

Attorney PAIENTEDJUNIZISB 5, 9 v

' mu 2 or 4 Erich Scheer INVENTOR.

- Armmvy PAIENIEB JUN! 3. 738 O98 saw u or 4 E fich Scheer IN V EN TOR.

ALARM CLOCK WITH HOUR AND MINUTE PRESETTING My present invention relates to a clock or other timepiece provided with a mechanical or electrical alarm mechanism.

The usual alarm clocks allow only an approximate presetting of the time when the alarm is to go off, generally to within not less than about 5 minutes. Kitchen timers, provided with a peripherally graded setting disk, can be adjusted more accurately but generally do not have an operating range of more than 1 or 2 hours.

It is, therefore, the principal object of my present invention to provide an improved alarm clock or timer which can be accurately preset, to within 1 or possibly a fraction thereof, over a period of at least 12 and preferably up to 24 hours.

This object is realized, pursuant to my present invention, by the provision of two independently adjustable, preferably disk-shaped setting members or selectors coacting with associated, preferably also disk-shaped follower members which are entrained at different rates by a relatively slow-moving and a relatively fastmoving shaft of the clockwork, generally the hour shaft and the minute shaft. Each pair of setting and follower members, referred to hereinafter for convenience as disks, carries a set of coacting formations which are positioned for interengagement once per revolution of the respective follower disk, the alarm being triggered when two sets of formations are simultaneously interengaged in this manner.

The coacting formations of each disk pair may include a lug on one disk which bears upon a confronting face of the other disk so as to fall into a depression or notch on that face whenever the position of the follower disk, and therefore of the associated clock shaft and hand, corresponds to the selected working position of the respective setting disk. An axial biasing force exerted upon either disk, advantageously upon the normally stationary setting disk, shifts the disks towards each other in the position of interengagement to enable the displacement of a trigger element operatively coupled therewith. The trigger element may be a resilient lever arm, such as a leaf spring, whose extremity closes an electric switch or disables a detent of the normally inactive alarm device; the two disk pairs may be provided with separate trigger elements, acting jointly upon the alarm mechanism, or may be in operative engagement with a common trigger element.

In a commonly assigned application filed jointly by Gunter Hummel and me on 28 Dec. 1970 now US. Pat. No. 3,686,879, Ser. No. 101,974, there has been disclosed a system of this general type wherein, however, the coacting elements are electric contacts rather than mechanically interengageable formations. As noted in that earlier application, the principle of triggering an alarm by the simultaneous interengagement of two sets of such coacting elements, moving at different relative speeds, may be further extended by the use of additional selector and follower members, e.g., with a follower disk performing one revolution every 24 hours to count the days of the week or, possibly, a disk rotating at a fraction of a minute (say, once every seconds) for an even more precise presetting of the alarm.

If the alarm is electrically triggerable, its operating circuit may include one or more contact springs displaceable by or acting directly as biasing levers for the axially movable disks.

The above and other features of my invention will be described in detail hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawing in which:

FIG. I is a face view of an alarm clock according to a first embodiment of the invention, with its housing removed;

FIG. 2 is a top plan view, partly in section, of the mechanism of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a front view, with its housing partly broken away, of an alarm clock according to another embodiment; and

FIG. 4 is a side-elevational view, partly in section, of the assembly of FIG. 3.

FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate an alarm clock driven by a mechanical or electrical movement, not shown, which comprises a minute shaft 1 and a surrounding tubular hour shaft 16 journaled in a housing partially shown at 2. These shafts also pass through a front wall 35, provided with the usual clock face, and carry a minute hand 31 as well as an hour hand 32. Shaft 16 and hand 32 conventionally rotate at a rate of one revolution every 12 hours, or two revolutions a day, whereas shaft 1 and minute hand 31 perform 1 revolution per hour.

A minute selector, generally designated 5, and an hour selector, generally designated 6, are mounted on a pair of stud shafts 3, 4 cantilevered on the rear housing wall 2. A sleeve 9 on shaft 3, driven from shaft 1 at a ratio of 1:1 via a pair of meshing gears 7 and 8, is integral with a follower disk 10 which thus also performs one revolution per hour. Follower disk 10, freely rotatable on shaft 3, confronts a setting disk 11 with a toothed periphery engaged by a pinion 39 on an operating shaft 37 which is also journaled in wall 2 and is manually rotatable by a knob 50. Disk 11 is indexable, as by a spring-loaded pawl partly illustrated at 45, in any one of 60 different angular positions in which one of a multiplicity of minute markings 33 is visible in a window 105 of front wall 35. For simplicity, only the even-numbered minute readings have been marked by digits, the odd-numbered readings being merely indicated by short lines.

The rear surface of setting disk 11 is provided with a wedge-shaped lug 15 which sweeps the adjoining face of follower disk 10 in the orbit of a notch 110. The lug and the notch are so dimensioned as to interengage only in a relative position of disks l0 and 11 in which the hand 31 indicates exactly the minute visible in window 105, i.e., in the present example the 42nd minute of the hour. A leaf spring 13, with a fixed end 113, bears with a central eye portion 14 upon the hub 12 of disk 11 which is axially shiftable on its shaft 3 but is normally held against such displacement by the lug 15 bearing upon a solid portion of the front face of disk 10. Only once per revolution of the disk, therefore, the free end 30 of spring 13 can swing rearwardly to trip an actuating element for an alarm device here shown as an electric buzzer, specifically a pushbutton 102 of a switch 101 in the energizing circuit of that buzzer. This circuit, however, is closed only upon simultaneous depression of another pushbutton 103 whose contacts are in series with those of pushbuttons 102 and which is similarly actuatable by a rearward swing of an extremity 29 of a leaf spring 26 fixedly mounted on the clock housing by its other end 126. Spring 26 has an eye portion 27 which bears upon the hub 25 of another setting disk 24 axially movable on shaft 4, the toothed periphery of the latter disk being in mesh with a pinion 40 on an operating shaft 38 which can be rotated by a knob 60. The rear face of setting disk 24 has a wedgeshaped lug 28 which normally rides on the front face of an adjoining follower disk 23 and, once per revolution of the latter disk, drops into a notch 123 thereof. Disk 23 is rigid with a sleeve 22 which is freely rotatable on shaft 4 and forms the hub of a gear 21 meshing with a gear 18 of half its own radius keyed to the hour shaft 16; disk 23, therefore, rotates only once every 24 hours, being entrained by shaft 16 with a step-down ratio of 2:1. The coupling between shafts 1 and 16 includes a gear 7a on shaft 1, another gear 20 in mesh therewith, a pinion 19 rigid with gear 20, and a gear 17 keyed to shaft 16.

Lug 28 and notch 123 are so disposed and dimensioned that their interengagement, with resulting rearward shifting of disk 24, occurs only in a relative disk position in which the hand 32 points to the hour visible in a window 106 of front wall 35, the two windows 105,

106 being separated by a narrow solid strip 41 forming part of that wall. In the specific example illustrated, the hour selected is the 16th hour, or 4 PM, so that spring 26 will depress its button 101" every other time when the hand 31 points to the four of the clock face. The 24 hours of the day have been designated through 23 on a peripheral zone 34 of disk 24; they could also be marked, of course, 1 AM through 12 AM and 1 PM through 12 PM or in some other convenient manner.

In FIGS. 3 and 4 I have illustrated a modified system in which corresponding elements have been designated by the same numerals as in FIGS. 1 and 2 with the addition of a prime mark. In this embodiment the four disks 11 23 and 24 are coaxially mounted on the two drive shafts 1 and 16, the three last-mentioned disks being axially shiftable with reference to disk 10 under pressure of a leaf spring 42 bearing with an elbow 43 upon the front face of disk 24' which is proximal to the front wall 35 of the clock housing. The pressure of spring 42 is transmitted from setting disk 24' via its lug 28' t to the associated follower disk 23' and thence through the hub 12 of setting disk 11 to the latter, the two lugs 28' and 15 being therefore urged by this spring pressure into engagement with the coacting notches (such as notch 123' shown in FIG. 3) in their position of mutual alignment. Thus, the free end 44 of spring 42 can swing rearwardly only to a limited extent if but one of these lugs drops into its notch; whenever the two lugs engage in their respective notches simultaneously, the swing of tip 44 will be sufficient to trip a detent 101 for the release of alarm 100'.

The coaxial arrangement of FIGS. 3 and 4 simplifies the gear assembly inasmuch as the follower disk 10' for the minutes can now be mounted directly on shaft 1, rigid with a gear 7' which forms part of the step-down transmission (including gears and 19' interconnected by a sleeve 48) that drives the hour shaft 16 from minute shaft 1'. The gear 19' meshes with the peripheral teeth of follower disk 23 which is axially shiftable on shaft 16 but nonrotatably keyed thereto, this disk thus forming part of the hour drive and rotating at the same rate as hand 32. The clock face or watch dial on housing wall 35 may therefore be subdivided into 24 hour markings, instead of the usual 12, if disk 23' is to perform one revolution per day as does disk 23 in the preceding embodiment. Naturally, it would also be r possible to drive the hand 32 from shaft 16 through a step-up transmission of ratio 2:1 if it is desired to use a normal clock face with 24-hour presetting. As illustrated, however, the peripheral zone 33 of presetting DISK 24 bears only the 12 hour markings of conventional time pieces so that in this case the time (here 10:50) selected for the tripping of the alarm will recur twice a day.

The disks 11 and 24 are individually settable, as in FIGS. 1 and 2, by respective pinions 39, 40 meshing with their toothed peripheries. These pinions are here mounted on a pair of coaxially nested shafts 37' and 38' extending parallel to clock shafts 1' and 16, the tubular operating shaft 37' being connected with an adjustment knob 50' surrounding a similar knob 60' for the inner shaft 38'.

The hour markings 33 on setting disk 24' are directly aligned with a window 106 in front wall 35, whereas the minute markings 34' on setting disk 11' are set farther back from that wall and can be viewed through a window thereof by way of a transparent zone 124 of disk 24. The lines of sight for these readings have been indicated by arrows H (hour) and M (Minute) in FIG. 4. Disk 24' could also be made in its entirety of a transparent, preferably plastic material such as, for example, a polyacrylate. It will be evident, however, that disk 24 could be made opaque if its radius is reduced with reference to that of disk 11 so that disk 24 will no longer obstruct the markings on disk 11' which will then be freely visible in the outer or upper window 106, the hour markings of disk 24 appearing in the inner or lower window 105'. The pinions 39' and 40', which of course would have to be of different diameters if coaxially mounted as shown, would then evidently have to be offset from the line of sight.

In both disclosed embodiments, the beveled shape of the lugs 15, 28 or 15', 28 and a complementary shaping of the associated notches exerts an axially effective camming force which readily restores the normal disk spacing as soon as the paired formations move out of alignment. As described in the copending application referred to above, the drive for the minute and hour shafts is preferably not continuous but in steps, as is well known per se, with each hand resting for its assigned time interval (minute or hour) in every working position. Such a stepping advance fixes exactly the onset of the alarm condition as well as its termination, normally after one minute unless special means are provided for extending or foreshortening that period. In the event of continuous motion, the lug and the notch of the hour selector would have to be designed to maintain their interengagement for exactly 60 minutes in order to prevent ambiguities.

The embodiment of FIGS. 1 and 2 is particularly suitable for flat timepieces whereas that of FIGS. 3 and 4 can be used advantageously with small, compact alarm clocks. I

The system described and illustrated may be used not only for triggering an alarm at a predetermined time but also for related purposes such as, for example, the release of a photographic shutter for a predetermined period at a specified hour and minute.

I claim:

1. A timer comprising a housing including a front wall provided with a window; a clockwork including a more slowly rotating tubular first shaft and a more rapidly rotating second shaft in said first shaft coaxially journaled in said front wall; an hour hand on said first shaft forwardly of said front wall; a minute hand on said second shaft forwardly of said front wall; an adjustable first setting disk on said first shaft provided with hour markings peripherally arrayed for consecutive viewing through a first part of said window and an independently adjustable second setting disk on said second shaft provided with minute markings peripherally arrayed for consecutive viewing through a second part of said window; a first follower disk rotatingly entrained by said first shaft adjacent said first setting disk, said first and second setting disks and said first follower disk being free for relative axial shifting; a second follower disk rotatingly entrained by said second shaft adjacent said second setting disk; at first pair of mechanically coacting formations on said first setting and follower disks positioned for interengagement once per revolution of said first follower disk upon relative axial shifting thereof; a second pair of mechanically coacting formations on said second setting and follower disks positioned for interengagement once per revolution of said second follower disk upon relative 'axial shifting thereof; an electric alarm circuit including normally open switch means; and resilient lever means bearing axially upon said first setting disk for biassing said first and second setting disks and said first follower disk toward said second follower disk, said lever means terminating adjacent said switch means for closing same upon simultaneous relative axial shifting of said first and second setting disks and said second follower disk.

2. A timer as defined in claim 1 wherein said setting disks have substantially the same diameter, said first setting disk having a transparent annular zone in line with said minute markings for making same visible through said window, said first follower disk having a radius smaller than that of said annular zone.

3. A timer as defined in claim 2 wherein the setting disks are provided with indexing means for releasably arresting them in any of their working positions.

4. A timer as defined in claim 3 wherein said setting disks are peripherally toothed, further comprising first and second adjusting means therefor including respective pinions in mesh therewith.

5. A timer as defined in claim 4 wherein said pinions are centered on an axis parallel'=to said shafts.

6. A timer as defined in claim 5 wherein said pinions are provided with respective operating shafts in coaxially nested relationship.

7. A timer as defined in claim 1 wherein said formations are a lug on one disk of each pair and a mating depression on the other disk of each pair, said lug and depression being shaped for camming disengagement against the force of said lever means upon continuing relative disk rotation. 

1. A timer comprising a housing including a front wall provided with a window; a clockwork including a more slowly rotating tubular first shaft and a more rapidly rotating second shaft in said first shaft coaxially journaled in said front wall; an hour hand on said first shaft forwardly of said front wall; a minute hand on said second shaft forwardly of said front wall; an adjustable first sEtting disk on said first shaft provided with hour markings peripherally arrayed for consecutive viewing through a first part of said window and an independently adjustable second setting disk on said second shaft provided with minute markings peripherally arrayed for consecutive viewing through a second part of said window; a first follower disk rotatingly entrained by said first shaft adjacent said first setting disk, said first and second setting disks and said first follower disk being free for relative axial shifting; a second follower disk rotatingly entrained by said second shaft adjacent said second setting disk; a first pair of mechanically coacting formations on said first setting and follower disks positioned for interengagement once per revolution of said first follower disk upon relative axial shifting thereof; a second pair of mechanically coacting formations on said second setting and follower disks positioned for interengagement once per revolution of said second follower disk upon relative axial shifting thereof; an electric alarm circuit including normally open switch means; and resilient lever means bearing axially upon said first setting disk for biassing said first and second setting disks and said first follower disk toward said second follower disk, said lever means terminating adjacent said switch means for closing same upon simultaneous relative axial shifting of said first and second setting disks and said second follower disk.
 2. A timer as defined in claim 1 wherein said setting disks have substantially the same diameter, said first setting disk having a transparent annular zone in line with said minute markings for making same visible through said window, said first follower disk having a radius smaller than that of said annular zone.
 3. A timer as defined in claim 2 wherein the setting disks are provided with indexing means for releasably arresting them in any of their working positions.
 4. A timer as defined in claim 3 wherein said setting disks are peripherally toothed, further comprising first and second adjusting means therefor including respective pinions in mesh therewith.
 5. A timer as defined in claim 4 wherein said pinions are centered on an axis parallel to said shafts.
 6. A timer as defined in claim 5 wherein said pinions are provided with respective operating shafts in coaxially nested relationship.
 7. A timer as defined in claim 1 wherein said formations are a lug on one disk of each pair and a mating depression on the other disk of each pair, said lug and depression being shaped for camming disengagement against the force of said lever means upon continuing relative disk rotation. 